COLLEGE ESSAY

Stanford University: “Some students have a background or story that is central to their identity that they believe their application would be incomplete without it. If this sounds like you, then please share your story.”

 
           “Stay true to who you are. Do what you want to do; be who you want to be,” my parents would always say to me. Growing up to be the youngest of two, the baby sister to a big brother, always had its up’s and down’s. Sometimes you feel as if you are not receiving equal treatment or love from your parents as your older sibling is. In your childhood years, the feeling of needing to live up to your older sibling does not really occur to you. In those carefree, no need to worry years, you are pretty much just going about your daily life, not knowing what kind of success you are achieving or even what you have to go up against. As you get older, moving up from grade level to grade level, you slowly start to understand the concept as to how difficult having an older sibling and trying to be just like them so you do not disappoint your parents, can be. Many people may have other opinions and perspectives on this, but overall according to my story, I can say that being the younger sibling and always being in the shadow of your older sibling is not always the easiest role to play.

            Three years apart; there was not a really big age gap in between. For years and years, I was always trapped in the shadow of my older brother. My brother was the student-athlete type. He always averaged around at least a 3.4-3.6 GPA for each quarter throughout his middle school years and a 3.6-3.8 GPA in his high school years. I cannot recall a time where he ever had a GPA lower than a 3.3. He was the “greater than average” type of student. Taking Pre-Algebra as a 7^th grader, then being pushed up to Algebra in the 8^th grade and never scoring lower than a B, and also balancing out all the extra curricular activities he participated in along with that. His extra curricular activities such as baseball, basketball, tackle and flag football, chorus, etc. My older brother was always so on top of everything. Along with that, as he was approaching his high school career, he was fortunate enough to get into Kamehameha Schools Kapalama as a freshman. Being the all around student-athlete that he was, he did so many great things throughout his four years at Kamehameha. There was him… and then there was me.

As he was a freshman, I was in the 6^th grade, and as he was a sophomore, I was in the 7^th grade. In all my elementary and middle schools years, even though we would fuss and fight, at the end of the day, I was always so excited to come home knowing that I had an older brother that I could be that supportive little sister for. However, as I approached my 8^th grade year, as I started getting more serious about my athletic career as a volleyball player, once in a while, I could feel my states of mind slowly changing. By that I mean that because both and my brother and I were starting to take our athletic careers much more serious, I started to feel as if I was in competition with him as to see who can make mom and dad prouder.

As an 8^th grader, my brother was in his third year of high school. He was a junior at this time. Junior year for him was a pretty big deal. His priorities revolved around college and football. My brother was always the one to make all the achievements in the family. He was very intelligent, very wise, very athletic. He could play pretty much anything and he wouldn’t even have to try hard. It was like he did everything right, like he never made any mistakes. Whereas me, it felt like I was the complete opposite.

My grades were not always the best, I will admit that. My highest GPA within middle school and high school, from 8^th grade to my sophomore year, would probably be a 3.6, but that was one time. And that was my highest. My average cumulative GPA as of my sophomore year was at least a 3.3. I got distracted fairly easily; I had what my dad liked to refer to as a “scatter brain” because I could not keep my mind set on just one thing at a time. Unlike my brother who barely ever had a hard time in majority of his core classes, I struggled a lot with my Science and English common core classes and as the stubborn teenager that I was, I did not always make the right choices and the wisest decisions either. I was never the best student, nor the “perfect” daughter that my parents wanted. At least that is how I felt. I was always second best.

I could understand if my parents would give my brother the extra treatment because he was the older one and because he was the more obedient one, and also because his high school career would soon be coming to an end, but it got to the point where I felt worthless and I just gave up on trying to make them proud. Every time I made an achievement in school, every time I was happy with myself for feeling like I finally did something right, it was barely ever acknowledged. If it was, it would be acknowledged for maybe a few minutes, and then my parents would either change the subject to something my brother did, connect it back to him in some way, or make it seem like they had no interest in what I had to say, so I just gave up. I tried really hard not to let all that get to me. I just went about my ways and about my own life. I stopped sharing with them what I was up to, how I was doing in school, the kinds of projects I had going on, the types of roles I played in school, the things that might have been bothering me, the other future achievements I made, etc. I felt as if I was nothing but a disappointment to my family.
Just like how my brother played football, basketball, and volleyball for his school, I was a volleyball player for mine. I played school volleyball and club volleyball. As of my sophomore year, I would have been playing volleyball for a total of nine years. There is nothing that I have more passion and love for than volleyball. I loved the hype in the game, the competition. I loved the challenges that I went through which made me the player that I am today. Volleyball was my escape from everything in my outside life. All the problems, all the heartache, everything else other people had to say about me, and so on. It was my escape. I loved the lessons that came from stepping on that court and putting my effort into a team. I was always a team player, but at the end of the day, I was not playing to make anyone else proud, but myself. I was playing to challenge myself to be better than I think because it was the only thing that I felt I was really good at.